We pulped the apples using a drill and a blade in a bucket. Safety - nil, casualty department - one. The apple pulp was then wrapped in a cheesecloth, pressed and filtered into a fermentation bucket. Having absolutely no idea what we were doing we added wine yeast to the apple juice. Which, in the English tradition, is apparently just not the done thing. English cider ordinarily uses the natural yeast on the apples or a dollop of beer yeast if fermentation doesn't kick in. It seems that we have created something a little bit French. Judging by the carbon bubbles in the inside of the bottles, it might just be sparkling too. Let's hope it isn't vinegar. Fish and chips anyone?

Aled Lewis, t-shirt designer, illustrator and man about town, knocked up some new sketches for us when he spent a week in our studio getting some work experience a while back.

Allsignsgroup recently won a Green Guardian award for being South West London's greenest company. Ray Sourceful was referenced as one of the major influences on the judges.

Soda has created simple informative maps and easy to read layouts for each of the guides as well as overseeing the print production process.

Our print product, Thumbnail Guides, is a complicated one involving an unusual and fiddly format that needs to be done just right. We found Soda had all the skills needed to help us through the prototype stage and to production of the final guides.

Soda helped us source and evaluate a good printer and its print knowledge and expertise enabled us to ensure the high quality end product that is critical to our success. Their patience, knowledge and valuable advice throughout the entire process has been invaluable.

Andrew Stone – Managing Director

Justin Levy needed to set up and be able to run an online shop in a matter of weeks. Vetmedsplus is an online Veterinary dispensary. He approached Soda to design the concept identity and web site from scratch and to a very tight budget.

The solution:

We began by assuming that, being a low cost dispensary, the brand needed to reflect the low cost of Vetmedsplus. We didn’t want to overawe the user. We wanted them to find their product and make the purchase. We chose a medically-themed colour palette and used quirky cartoon animals to brighten the shop up with.

For the ecommerce side of things we chose Miva. It allowed us to build from a template and provided a proven platform for Justin to work from. Justin required that we get this running very quickly and Miva vastly reduced development time. We heavily customised the default site provided by Miva and have since completely rebuilt their html code from scratch. We used css, some Flash and various Miva modules to flesh out the site.

Today the Vetmedsplus site goes from strength to strength with constantly increasing monthly visitors since its launch in 2006. Google Analytics figures recently revealed a 43% increase in traffic over the past 6 months.

All of Soda's work is produced in-house using XHTML, CSS and Coldfusion for the tricky bits. We have embraced clean web standards which helps your site to be more accessible and readable by the search engines.

Sometimes there is no point reinventing the wheel. We can also design and install off-the-shelf blogging software, like Wordpress, and content management software, like Expression Engine.

Barratt Homes briefed Soda to produce a fresh, exciting and aspirational brochure that would invigorate the long-running development. The mix of houses and apartments available at The Hawthorns required a brochure that targeted a broad spread of consumers, from first-time buyers to growing families.

Soda's solution was Fusion, a contemporary name and design that was an accurate reflection of the product and would create interest in the development and generate footfall to the marketing suite.

The Aurora logo-style, brochure designs and direct mail campaign were part of Soda’s successful solution to this challenge.

As our team are all in-house we can respond immediately to our clients, and offer a better value service.

The panels were printed onto black foamex with a clear gloss vinyl film applied to key areas of the design like a giant UV varnish.

We also produced invites on a high black gloss card with screenprinted white text and a varnish overprint.

Soda designed, illustrated, wrote and distributed the entire project from start to finish with the invaluable help and enthusiasm of Antony Roberts' in-house editor, Fiona Wade. The newsletter was printed onto 100% recyclable paperstock using vegetable oil inks and a waterless process.

A1GP Executive Producer, Mike Scott, required a tool to help him improve booking trackside advertising. They needed it to be available for worldwide distribution and needed to include both signage files and movie data within a single format.

The solution:

We had already produced signage data pdfs for A1GP and redrawn all their circuit diagrams over the last couple of years. Soda suggested using Adobe Acrobat’s inbuilt multimedia to solve to online and offline problem faced by A1GP.

Using Indesign, Acrobat and Quicktime we quickly produced a mockup of a working circuit. The interactive circuit map allows a user to click on cameras or signage. These link to pages containing signage data information and signage file links or movies of the signage in view of each circuit camera at the click of a button. This enables A1GP to show potential sponsors the exact footage they are going to get from their trackside signage.

The final 11 tracks for the entire series were then uploaded as PDFs to a file sharing platform and can be accessed by all A1GP employees authorised to do so.

Soda has been responsible for designing many props including posters, signage, backdrops and printed materials for these productions.

Through Nick we have worked for many leading production companies including MJZ, Rattling Stick, Rogue Films and Nice Shirt Films.

I have worked with Soda since their inception. My projects have always set deadlines and strict budget constraints Soda consistently come up trumps not only on these points but also with fresh and relevant designs. The new studio clearly represents their forward-looking approach in a very competitive field and I look forward to a long and lasting relationship with the team.

Films that we have worked on together include Bend it like Beckham, Bride and Predjudice, and Mrs Mietlemier, commercial credits include Walkers crisps, Capital One, Bundy Rum, Sheba, Channel 4, Vodafone, National Lottery, and too many others to mention here. I hope you have as much success working with them as I have.

Nick Ellis – Production Director

To originate and develop a distinctive brand identity for this leading European trade marking attorney office for their stationery requirements. Bison Rivers wanted a confident, established identity that would be memorable to the wide business sector that they service through out the EU.

The solution:

Bison Rivers wanted a brand that was instantly recognizable, one that made them stick out from the crowd of the usually rather formal Brand Attorneys without compromising their professional integrity and reputation.

We created a logotype and logo taking inspiration from North American Indian cave paintings. We added an embossed effect and printed onto a leather effect paper stock to mimic bison hide. The embossed and leather feel adds to the weight and the solidity of the brand and the company as a whole.

We also provide a range of Electronic Direct Mail services - a more cost-effective and eco-friendly method of reaching out to your key audience. For bulk email and SMS we use an established and trusted third party Email Marketing Provider. We can also design HTML templates for your own delivery systems.

Contact Soda if you would like to discuss setting up reciprical links with us.

Recommended partners

Allsignsgroup
Supplier of large format printing and signage.

Matt Latchford
Illustrator and animator extraordinairre!

Monkeehouse
Web-based application development.

Tim Hollis Photography
Specialists in stylish portraiture, interiors and high impact business photography.

Big Hello Design
Creative Design Agency offering specialist skills in web interfaces, animation and Flash.

Design sites

A List Apart
Articles and news on web standards, accessibility, and usability.

AVA Publishing
A great design book publisher.

Design Week
Weekly publication for the design industry

Waldo Pancake
Illustrator and artist, Jim Smith, and his bizarre take on the world.

SimpleBits
Dan Cederholm is a CSS design hero.

Marketing sites 

Academy Internet
SEO and internet marketing training specialists. Check out the Academy Internet podcast on iTunes.

Pure360
Email newsletter and electronic direct mail (EDM) specialists.

Online design resources

Designers Toolbox
Online resource for web designers including form element graphics and Lorem ipsum generators.

Grids
Yahoo CSS development framework.

Blueprint
Google CSS development framework.

AgencyTool
Online resource for web designers.

jQuery for Designers
Ajax geekspeak made easy(er) for Desginers.

Typophile
Type information and forums for finding fonts.

FontShop
Fantastic store for font-related shopping sprees.

Basecamp
37Signals online project management and collaboration tool

Soda was called in to freshen up The Regard Partnership branding. We designed a new logo, newsletter and brochure within a week. This rapid rollout was tested on the South East region of their business and was so successful that Soda is now rolling out the brand to the rest of the country. This includes providing design consultation on The Regard Partnership web site, producing all of their printed marketing literature and exhibition stand designs.

Wright Apartments provide quality accommodation for 3 cities: London, Dublin and Florence.

Key to the build was ease of use, search capability and a more SEO friendly page design. Soda use Coldfusion for any dynamic site builds. Its ease of use and rapid deployment allow us to deliver great designs in no time at all.

Congratulations Soda Art on creating a truly wonderful new website. The site has received so many complimentary remarks from our clients and with all the latest features you introduced we now feel we are leagues ahead of our competitors.

Your expertise is second to none and we cannot thank you enough.

Vanessa Scales - Owner, Wright Apartments

Soda was consulted to look at ways of improving their website layout and help with the launch of their new Daily HotelBenchmark survey.

"Soda completed a review of HotelBenchmark.com to suggest improvements and worked with us on the creation of an animated banner for our homepage as part of the launch of a new service.

The team at Soda were a pleasure to work with throughout the creative process and I found their guidance and suggestions for improvements invaluable. The service they provided gave us a winning combination of both creativity and user insight. Myself and my team at Deloitte are delighted with the final animation and have received only positive feedback"

Tina Wanstall, Marketing Manager, HotelBenchmark by Deloitte

We found the whole process of working with Soda both innovative and exciting. The net result was a identity and web site that has been well received and widely complemented.

William Tyler - Group Managing Director, Allsignsgroup

The team at Soda are always coming up with creative innovative ideas that will ensure that our detailed production documents are informative and easy to understand, as well as being on-time and on-budget.

Mike Scott – Executive Producer, A1GP Productions

Soda Art Limited
Somerset House, Somerset Road, Teddington, Middx TW11 8RL

Registered Offices: 22 Orchard Road, Twickenham, Middlesex, TW1 1LY. Registered in England no. 5150978

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Our own web site has been woefully neglected this year especially in favour of our client work. We are hoping to redress this imbalance with this new layout, the third incarnation of our web site. We wanted to increase the size of the images of the work we produce so we developed a white, cleaner and wider framework for the site. We have added a new article section that offers regular advice and business information. We hope this creates debate and informs the reader.

Please do let us know your thoughts and comments; we welcome any feedback from our visitors and hope you enjoy looking through what we have to offer.

Soda designs and builds web sites in the same way it approaches its other design and marketing projects. Soda believes that all well designed marketing material will directly improve your sales and ultimately your profits.

This article aims to highlight the processes we follow when designing web sites and also point you in the right direction when tackling an online web project.

What can you use your web site for?

We often get asked, “What is the point of having a web site?” If you don’t have an online shop or aren't selling services over the internet then there are still plenty of benefits for putting your company, project or organisation online. The overall effect you want from your web site is probably as follows.

1. Increase profits

By improving the communication of your brand, your core values and your services you will increase the amount of people who are aware of your company. And that can only be a good thing.

2. Increase sales

People buy things when they trust the company they are purchasing from. Improve your online presence, enable your visitors to trust and enjoy their experience on your web site and those visitors will begin to become customers.

3. Convert visitors into customers

Repeat visitors are interested in your company. By providing reasons for them to return to your web site you have a great opportunity in converting visitors into customers.

4. Providing online customer support and informational services

You can reduce wasted phone calls and enquiries by providing an online brochure of your services and products. This can be extended into providing information on employment, contact details, directions and information on staff. In fact the more information you put on your web site the more time you will have to concentrate on getting your real job done.

5. Reducing operational costs

Your web site can act as a live conduit between you and your potential customers. By providing up-to-date news and information you reduce the need for staff on hand to provide this information or process tentative sales enquiries.

6. Increase awareness of your brand and business

The more people who see your services or products then the more people will be aware of your brand. A well designed planned and maintained web site will increase this awareness exponentially.

7. Increase traffic to your site

Use offline as well as online marketing techniques to promote your web site and brand. An increase in traffic to and from your site will itself bring more visitors to view your company online. Your ranking will improve as will the amount of sites that link into your web site.

What can I do to attract new business?

There are many ways to improve the traffic to your site. Yet it is interesting that many sites ignore many key objectives you need to consider when launching or re-launching a web site.

Content is king. Interesting and engaging copy will not only hold a visitors attention it will also help you move up the rankings in the search engines.

Current content is “kingerer”. Update your web site regularly to attract visitors back to your site. Often visitors will visit your web site several times before they decide to use your services or buy your product. They may be on a fact-finding mission and return once they have researched other competitors. Visitors like to see new content as do the search engines. Regular visitors often become customers.

Use content to build relationships. Rather than supplying a download document, require the visitor to enter their email address and automate email delivery of the document. That way you have gathered their details for future contact.

Create actions on sections of your site. For example on your contact page try to capture client information in a form that you can use in further promotions. Make it enticing to join by promising special offers and promotions to members of the mailing list.

Associate your company with expert advice. Use email newsletters to offer advice and tips on your services and products as well as report on case studies, new products and services.

Become a central resource tool for people in your industry. Linking to competitors and similar businesses is not always a bad thing. If you can make your web site into a central hub for visitors then you will increase traffic to your web site and potentially increase sales.

Offer useful services such as easily printable pages on your site. Also think about offering links for social networking sites to promote your web site on these rapidly growing networks. You could even use a blog as a magnet for return visits. Is there someone in your organisation suited for this task? The more sites you are mentioned on then the more you move up the search engine page ranks.

Make your web site work for your target audience as well as potential new clients. Casual visitors who don't necessarily use your products often know someone who is your target audience.

Provide easy recruitment and support pages to reduce time and costs to your company.

Test your web site and test it again. Often clients are loath to test their sites. By using a wide range of people with varying degrees of computing skills and expectations you can identify areas of your web site that need attention before launching to the general public.

Assemble a test committee made up of employees, family members and trusted customers. Do this with any online press releases and newsletters too to ensure errors and bugs are minimised.

Keep your design simple. You only have a few seconds to attract the attention of your visitors. Soda likes to keep navigation and layout simple. Visitors need to get to the facts quickly. If they are waiting for a splash screen or flashy effects to load they will probably leave the web site before you have a chance to engage them with your core messages.

Measuring your success

The only way to measure the success of your web site is to analyse statistics gathered by your hosting company or a third party web site like Google Analytics. By monitoring popular pages, favourite products and documents and top keywords used in search engines, you can build up a useful picture of how the web site appeals to users.

You can choose to pay for online advertising. By monitoring this statistical information you can quickly find out which keywords are working for your business.

Online promotion and marketing is not rocket science. Many people continue to see online promotion as some kind of alchemy. It isn’t. It is the same as offline or traditional marketing methods. Identify your key skills. Promote those key skills in a clear and easily digestible form and people will respond. By identifying what is important to your business and how far you are prepared to go you can really develop an online marketing tool that will really improve your brand, the perception of your business within the market place and ultimately your profits.

What does Soda offer with your web site?

It is easy to pick the cheapest quote but consider what it is you are getting for your money. Soda offers the following with every web site.

CSS table-less layouts

CSS allows your site to be viewed on all manner of devices such as mobiles and PDA’s. Content is separated from design which speeds up development, rapid changes can be made site-wide to design. CSS allows easy-to-print pages as well as advantages to accessibility issues.

XHTML 1.0 verified code

Soda's code is subjected to rigorous testing and, where applicable, conforms to WC3’s XHTML 1.0 transitional framework. This ensures cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility.

Accessibility pages and navigation

Not everyone can access the full diversity of technologies available on the Internet. Soda provides an accessibility menu for navigating the site using keyboard strokes. We use high contrast colours to ease readability and make sure that the sites work in various font sizes.

Google Analytics account

We add some code to the bottom of all your web pages. This allows Google Analytics to track visitors to your site. We then set up an automated delivery of reports to your desktop so you can monitor your web sites success.

Dedicated design and project management team

We are not a one-man band and so we are equipped to provide you with serious studio-based back-up when you need it. You get one point of contact for your account and direct access to the creative team at all times. We are also small and proud of this fact. It keeps design and development costs down compared to large agency-based design companies.

Excellent customer support

Our team have over 20 years experience in design, print and web development. They have experienced most projects first hand and can apply this knowledge to your project from day one.

If you need extra support and features on your web site then Soda can provide you with the following:

Email marketing and newsletter delivery campaign management

Soda has partnered with a specialist EDM delivery supplier. Using their unique and easy-to-use tools you can create powerful email campaigns, track delivery statistics and even link your CRM directly to the newsletter campaigns. Using a third party specialist reduces the risk of becoming blacklisted.

It also reduces costs and time spent fiddling with complicated mail merge lists and email server technology. Upload the design, choose the list of people and click send. It is that easy.

Supporting design and printed promotional material

Soda also provides offline traditional design as well as web design. In fact our account manager has specialist print knowledge and access to both great prices and print quality.

Flash animation and development

Sometimes only Flash will give you the flexibility you need for a certain feature. We use Flash for slideshows, animations and certain navigation. We always make sure that there is an alternative content available if a particular visitor cannot use Flash in their web browser.

CMS and custom database development

There is a wealth of CMS off the shelf solutions available to develop a web site from. Soda have used these in the past but we generally custom build in PHP or ColdFusion from scratch so that your web site is entirely built to order.

PHP or ColdFusion scripting

Scripting languages allow your web site to engage with a visitor. A script can interact with a database to process orders, capture visitor data or power forums and mailing lists. Soda uses ColdFusion on most of its web sites because it allows us to develop more rapidly. PHP is our other tipple of choice.

E-Commerce

Again, there is a wealth of E-commerce off the shelf solutions. Soda has used Miva in the past but we can build and project manage E-Commerce web sites to order.

Web hosting and web mail services with anti spam

Soda have partnered with one of the most reliable and helpful hosting providers out there. We can provide your business with online web mail, hosting, statistics and online access to add email addresses, ftp users etc.

AdWords and SEO advice and support

Soda can optimise your web content to get the best out of the search engines and directory listings. We can help you build successful keyword marketing campaigns, either ourselves or through a number of partner programmes with specialist SEO marketing providers

Soda designed and developed the complete website using a heavily-customised MIVA script that kept this complicated project within budget and delivered on time.

Soda uses a network of trusted high quality printers, each with their own area of expertise. If you have a particular print requirement then we can find the right printer for the job at a competitive price.

Soda can supply quick, elegant and competitive copywriting for all your marketing requirements.

Our aim is to help increase your profits by delivering clean, thoughtful, eye-catching design for every aspect of your business.

Contact us today on 0845 644 0212 for a free initial consultation.

Glen is our new Managing Director and has a wealth of experience in account management with a number of high profile Central London agencies. Glen brings with him some brilliant accounts and we look forward to bringing our excellent service record to these new clients. Gavin is a freelancer senior designer and will be using our resources as much as we hope to use his vast experience and talent. Glesni is Glen's right hand woman and is looking forward to working within our existing studio in 2008.

You can catch it at the Design Museum and the ICA throughout September.

UPDATE 2-10-2007

Soda had a company outing to see the film last week. We thoroughly recommend it despite the accusations of being "spods, squares and anoraks" we got from friends and colleagues.

Soda install this increasingly powerful site statistic software onto every site it works on. We will help you set up a Google Analytics account.

They have assembled compelling evidence suggesting that design is an integral part of improving growth and competitiveness at all levels.

Soda also believes that great design adds value to business. We aim to increase our clients' profits by improving the ways in which they communicate with their target audience.

Visit the Designing Demand Web site